Gaza doctors detail burns to entire victims' bodies from chemical that is forbidden to be used as a weapon

This settles that. But note how long it took to prove something that we ALL saw live on TV and was abundantly clear from day 1!

Israel’s political and military spokepersons and spin master, who were over and over again exposed as unashamed compulsive liars, still manage to make a lie stick simply because very few have the courage and will to challenge it. The UN’s slavish reaction to the first massacre of 43 civilians sheltered in one of its schools encouraged Israel to propagate its lie that resistance fighters fired from with the school. It took days and meticulously documented proof to show that Israel was lying. By then, however, most Americans and a substantial chunk of the European publics as well had already internalized the repeated lie.

Israel’s massive PR machine and rein of terror in most mainstream western media outlets, intimidating and bullying into submission reporters and editors who dare tell the truth, have been quite successful in compelling most American and European mainstream journalists to parrot the Israeli talking points or, at best, to deal with the aggression in a way that equates the occupier’s acts of genocide (in the siege and war on Gaza) of the occupier withthe resistance of the occupied. Spin, misinformation and outright distoritons have, accordingly, become the norm in western coverage of Israel’s open massacre in Gaza.

No wonder, then, we see the “gelly-fish” effect of white phosphorous bombs before our eyes raining on Gaza, we see the burn victims, mostly children, on hospital beds in Gaza, with faces or limbs burnt to the bones, we hear eyewitnesses describe in excruciating details the effect of phosphorous on their own bodies and those of loved ones, and still, many tend to believe the Israeli spin and question what their entire nervous system and brain are telling them!

This is the level of control over media coverage of the question of Palestine that Israel has achieved. Controlling the narrative, the “pundits,” the text and sub-text, Israel’s spin masters have largely succeeded (in the US and, to a lesser extent, in Europe) to deem the very pictures and footage of their horror almost irrelevant, as if the pictures themselves were biased while the narrative was the truth, the only truth.

Long live the alternative media and … those brave journalists in the Guardian, the Independent and other liberal media who have set themselves apart from the criminal choir!

A doctor shows phosphorous bomb injuries in Gaza. Warning: contains graphic footage of war injuriesLink to this video

Video showing injuries consistent with the use of white phosporous shells has been filmed inside hospitals treating Palestinian wounded in Gaza City.

Contact with the shell remnants causes severe burns, sometimes burning the skin to the bone, consistent with descriptions by Ahmed Almi, an Egyptian doctor at the al-Nasser hospital in Khan Younis.

Almi said the entire body of one victim was burned within an hour. It was the first time he had seen the effects of what he called a “chemical weapon”.

The Israeli military has denied using white phosphorus during the assault on Gaza, but aid agencies say they have no doubt it has been used.

“It is an absolute certainty,” said Marc Garlasco, a senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch. He had seen Israeli artillery fire white phosphorous shells at Gaza City, Garlasco said.

The shells burst in the air, billowing white smoke before dropping the phosphorous shell.

Garlasco said each shell contains more than 100 incendiary rounds, which ignite and pump out smoke for about 10 minutes.

Severe respiratory problems can result in anyone exposed to the smoke and burning chemical particles that rain down over an area the size of a football pitch.

According to the International Solidarity Movement, many patients at the hospital near Khan Younis were suffering from serious breathing difficulties after inhaling smoke.

Human Rights Watch compares the use of white phosphorous shells over Gaza to the impact of cluster munitions, which scatter “bomblets” over a wide area. Children may kick and play with a lump of phosphorus, stirring up the embers and producing more fire and smoke.

The use of white phosphorus as a weapon – as opposed to its use as an obscurant and infrared blocking smoke screen – is banned by the UN’s third convention on conventional weapons, which covers the use of incendiary devices. Though Israel is not a signatory to the convention, its military manuals reflect the convention’s restrictions on using white phosphorus.

Israel initially claimed that it was not using white phosphorus. It later explained that shells being loaded for a howitzer, identified from photographs as phosphorous rounds, were empty “quiet” shells used for target marking. However, images of exploding shells and showering burning fragments are now acknowledged by independent observers as having been phosphorus.

At the centre of the controversy is the way white phosphorous air burst shells have been used in heavily built-up urban areas, with an overwhelmingly civilian population.

The M825A1 rounds, which are the kind identified as being fired by Israeli forces, are made primarily for use as a smokescreen in a way that limits their effect as an incendiary weapon, experts say.

Neil Gibson, a technical adviser to Jane’s Missiles and Rockets magazine, said the shells did not produce high-velocity burning fragments like conventional white phosphorous weapons once did.

Instead, he said, they produced a “series of large slower burning wedges which fall from the sky”. The wedges would then ignite spontaneously in the air and fall to the ground, burning for five or 10 minutes, he said.

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